Map Of The Heart: Meeting Sarah Blair

Way back in February of this year 2016 I was at the Tranoi Paris with the Le Galion boys, Neela Vermeire, Pierre Guillaume and Ulrich Lang. I know right. It’s like a name dropping extravaganza. Ulrich was trying to introduce me to a new brand called Map Of The Heart that I had walked past, looked at, squirmed with revulsion and wandered on. They have the fragrance in bottles shaped like hearts. No not the cutesy hearts of childhood and Hello Kitty. NOPE. These are replicas of anatomical hearts created by master bottle maker Pierre Dinand, and frankly BLEAUGH. They remind me of the cow and sheep hearts Mum used to get to feed the dogs and cats of our childhood, gawd I thought they were SO disgusting. Seriously…….. GAK.

So the other day Ainslie Walker invites me to the grand Opening of a new Aussie fragrance company called Map Of The Heart. Sadly I’m busy so we cruise on down the day after Opening Night (yesterday) to the new Liverpool St Darlinghurst pop-up shop. I hadn’t really thought about the brand we were seeing much because I like to be surprised and we walk in and…….

Map Of The Heart: Meeting Sarah Blair

yes, you guessed it. The bloody ghastly HEART BOTTLES! Ha Ha Ha Ha.

The bottle is unbelievable comfortable once it’s in your hand. It feels right and is so easy to spritz.

Myself, Ainslie & SA Jodie sniffing the range

The room is so stark white that the light seems diffuse & milky and in the centre is this beat up vintage Jaguar with boxes spilling out.

The red heart in the centre is their best seller worldwide. It’s a fruity fizz fragrance, a fruit-chouli. Very accessible for the modern fragrance shopper.

Sarah Blair is very articulate about her company and the heart designed bottle. She is passionate about creating an interesting and slightly challenging brand and though a lot of what she says is very cerebral and art/visual/international jet-set speak she has really thought about what she wants to say with the Map Of The Heart brand above and beyond becoming a successful business venture. I find her engaging and we were really sad that there was a time budget because Sarah Blair needs closer investigation.

Ainslie always knows the way to talk to business people and perfumers so I found out lots of interesting stuff that I would never even have known to ask. Bravo Ainslie.

Sarah also took my loathing of the bottle completely in her stride. Once she started to explain her motives it all made some sense to me. Still I’d rather eat my foot than have that bottle in my home. I did ask if there is going to be a Travel Set with regular bottles in the future and they are currently talking about making that happen.

Gold Heart V.4 by Map Of The Heart

If you’ve ever tried Costume National’s 21 then you already have an idea of how Gold Heart smells. It’s a bit simpler, less confronting and all together an easier wear than 21. I found it so effortlessly wearable in 35C heat yesterday and found its staying power very good too. The milky saffron last to nearly the end when a nondescript woody dry down hums along merrily and very quietly.

Heya Val,
Yes I know you have hypernosmia issues with the current crop of woodsy notes. The ones in the base of gold Heart are not the usual gritty, dark insta-niche lines style, much less abrasive.
Portia xx

What an interesting concept and artistic store, including the car. I happen to agree on the bottle though and I get that evil Queen from Snow White feeling myself. The car with the crushed roof spilling contents sadly reminds me of an accident with human remains spilling out. It is macabre, yet I can’t pull my eyes away. I don’t know, I would be morbidly fascinated with these and want to smell them all, but I really don’t know if I could bring myself to buy one. Perhaps the gold one, that is the least fearsome to me. But I would have so loved to wander in and experience this. Thanks for sharing this!

Hey Barbara,
Great to see you.
The car still life is gorgeous and macabre, very dark art. The lines of the beautiful old Jaguar distorted and squished into tortured shapes is also hauntingly alluring.
I can’t stop thinking about how much I enjoyed the Gold Heart fragrance. Holding the bottle changes the perspective completely, there is something organically pleasing about the size & shape.
Yes, very Snow White.
Portia xx

Hey TaraC,
That the heart is the source of everything, that it’s beautiful/ugly, a comfortable fit in the hand and easy to spritz, that it’s art and that she loves it. Pretty good arguments in favour but I don’t want it.
Can’t wait for the travel set.
Portia xx

Ok I’ll be the renegade and say I actually kind of like the bottles! I didn’t when I first saw pictures of them from Pitti, but looking at them now, they have a strange sculptural and structural quality that I find oddly compelling.

Yes Robert, You are 100% right. These are not bottles they are art. Apparently the hardest bottle Pierre Dinand has EVER had to manufacture, some of the parts need to be done by hand. Thus costly and time consumptive. They are compelling, in the hand they are the most extraordinary feeling of rightness.
The black one is dark and charred. Red one is fizzy fruit-chkuli, clear one is a salty aquatic that I enjoyed and I can’t remember the other. Sorry.
Portia xx

I have to admit I like the heart bottle. It’s a bit gimmicky, but I like it–and I can’t stand girly heart stuff, but the real one is better. The car with a heart bottles spilling out is very disturbing, and the juice doesn’t seem like it would do a lot for me. However when Angel came out, and I bought it years later to see what the fuss was about, as pretty as the bottle was, it was not easy to set on the dresser. Even more disturbing was the juice, the unmistakeable cloying red sweet berry juice… So yup, plain bottles are sometimes better.

Hey Shiva-woman,
I’m really glad that people are liking the heart bottle. My personal taste doesn’t endear it to me but I really want Sarah Blair to be a success. She wants to create something totally out of the ordinary, good luck to her.
Oh yes, Angel. We either love or loathe it.
Portia xx